Ultimate Punishment

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT - PAGE 2

By Steve Chapman. Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune's editorial | May 10, 2001

If Timothy McVeigh were spared from execution next week, he might expect to spend the rest of his life locked in an 8-by-12-foot federal prison cell for 23 hours a day, with only the most spartan furnishings, virtually no contact with other human beings and just one hour a day for exercise. He could endure that bleak routine 365 days a year, for 40 or 50 years, with no hope of ever drawing another free breath. God, what a disgraceful act of coddling that would be. Instead, McVeigh will be killed by lethal injection next week.

By Tribune researcher Barbara Sherlock contributed to this list | September 9, 1990

These are the men on Illinois` Death Row, the convicted murderers sentenced to the state's maximum punishment for killings that involved more than one victim, children, public officials, prison inmates or were committed with other crimes. The prisoners below, listed with their current ages and in order of their sentencings, are in various stages of appealing their cases. None, however, has had his death sentence replaced, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. 1)

Prosecutors have decided to seek the ultimate punishment against Scott Peterson, the man accused of killing his pregnant wife on Christmas Eve. "A decision has been made to seek the death penalty in the case of People of California vs. Scott Peterson," according to a statement by Stanislaus County District Attorney James Brazelton. The bodies of Laci Peterson, 27, and the unborn son the couple had planned to name Conner were found April 14 in San Francisco Bay, about 3 miles from where Scott Peterson said he was fishing when his wife vanished.

The Roman Catholic bishops of Texas have asked Gov. George W. Bush to suspend the death penalty and review capital punishment in the state, which leads the nation in executions. "It is essential that, if the state is going to impose the ultimate punishment, there be no margin of error," the bishops of the Texas Catholic Conference said in a letter to Bush made public Thursday. Bush spokeswoman Linda Edwards said Thursday that the governor has no plans to halt executions. There have been 119 since Bush took office in January 1995.

Complaining of unfairness, the American Bar Association urged a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty Monday despite opposition from its own president and the Clinton administration. The ABA's House of Delegates, which sets policy for the nation's largest group of lawyers, voted 280-119 for the resolution. Leaders of the 370,000-lawyer organization were told death-penalty systems are marred by unfairness and racial injustice. Robert Gray of Richmond, Va., said, "As reprehensible as a capital crime is, it is equally unacceptable to administer the ultimate punishment in a racially discriminatory way."

Timothy McVeigh returns to court Thursday to seek a new trial, blaming his conviction and death sentence in the Oklahoma City bombing on actions by his lawyer, untruthful jurors and the government. McVeigh says his constitutional right to effective counsel was violated when his former defense lawyer, Stephen Jones, leaked inflammatory stories about him to the news media. Jones has denied the allegations. McVeigh's appeal also contends some jurors were untruthful during jury selection, and that the government suppressed evidence involving problems at an FBI lab that handled evidence.

It is regrettable that as ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein received a death sentence, his just desserts, some used the opportunity to rail against imposition of this ultimate punishment being implemented against one who committed mass savagery against his people. In a slap in the face to the United States, to Iraq and to justice, a twisted Vatican issued a statement calling the execution "tragic." What is tragic is not that a mass murderer met his appropriate end but that he was able to brutalize his country for so long--murdering, torturing, maiming and destroying the lives of millions of innocent Iraqis, including children.

Kudos to the Tribune and to several of the national news magazines for keeping the death-penalty issue alive and the public well-informed. But there is another facet to this penalty issue. It seems certain to me that the rate of wrongful convictions in capital cases, where the issue of life and death is at stake, must be much lower than the rate of wrongful convictions for all the other cases requiring only imprisonment. Think of all the people rotting in prison wrongfully robbed of their freedom.

The senseless death of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion has shocked the nation. The sheriff in Orange County, Calif., where she lived, has promised to seek the ultimate punishment for the little girl's assailant. In California, this means the death penalty. If this same crime took place in Illinois, however, capital punishment would not be an option for prosecutors, under the recommendations of the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment. The state would have to prove a child was physically tortured before being killed in order to meet the new guidelines from George Ryan's commission.

By Marlene Martin, National director, Campaign to End the Death Penalty | June 6, 2003

When I first read it, I had hoped that the headline "Unfinished business" over a May 14 Chicago Tribune editorial about capital punishment referred to the abolition of the death penalty. The Tribune, I thought, had taken a decisive stand: that a system so wrought with unfairness and injustice serves no legitimate purpose and must never be used again. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The thrust of your editorial was to commend several proposals for reforms to the death penalty system under consideration in Springfield.